West and Guests
Opener Left By The
Roadside To Die is an interesting start, the song driven by a synth riff
rather than West’s guitar. But it is the blues, and he plays slide on this one.
It is followed by Give Me One Reason,
and here it is West’s gruff, seasoned vocal that leads, the guitar punctuating
with crisp whining clips. Third Here For
The Party is what we’ve been waiting for, a hard-driving riff-thumping
rock-blues and West continuing with his remarkably still-powerful vocal chops
and more of those crisp licks. The party has begun.
The pace slows on fourth where Peter Frampton guests on the
cover of You Are My Sunshine, strings
soothing behind that huge vocal, guitar picking up the familiar melody
beautifully, a snippet of dueting at the end. On fifth we return to the West singing
scream – it is still wonderful – on Empty
Promises/Nothin’ Sacred, a chugging blues with drums controlling the
rhythm. Sixth A Stern Warning is a guitar
instrumental of acoustic wizardry.
This is the excellent mix. Other guests and covers are People Get Ready, West at his empathetic
emotive vocal best, guitar oozing the melody too; Brian May bluesy on the great
Going Down [this is a rouser]; an acoustic
Stand By Me with the Ariela Pizza on
accompanying vocal duty; an instrumental work-out of Eleanor Rigby, and as a special closer a live recording of the late
Jack Bruce and West playing the iconic [I think the word is appropriate here] Spoonful.
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